Using Customers’ Personality Traits To Sell More, More Quickly

As the owner or manager of a business, you probably know your own company and brand very well. It’s also quite likely that you’re familiar with your target audience, and the general identity of your customer base. However, do you really know your customers as people, not just stats? Without investing time in getting to understand your customers’ personality traits, and how this affects their consumer journey, you will be severely limiting the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.

By placing your different types of customers in groups based upon their personality types and distinguishing the best way to sell to each unique group, you’ll soon see the improvement in your click-through rates. Using an incorrect approach with your customers can quickly lead to frustration and the belief that your brand is not relevant to them. Your sales pitches should appeal to your consumers’ individualistic traits: this means segmenting your audience to avoid using a ‘one size fits all’ approach to your communications.
To help you out, we’ve identified 4 main types of customer – bottom-line, excitable, humanist and logical. In this article, we will provide valuable insights on how best to approach and pitch to each of these types of customer, in the hope of driving more sales.

To help you out, we’ve identified 4 main types of customer – bottom-line, excitable, humanist and logical. In this article, we will provide valuable insights on how best to approach and pitch to each of these types of customer, in the hope of driving more sales.

1. The Bottom-line Customer

Bottom-line consumers tend to be highly assertive, goal-orientated and competitive. They are far more likely to be concerned with what you have to offer them, rather than developing a meaningful connection with your brand. Instead, they’ll deliver something as equally as meaningful; a healthy business relationship.

As long as you’re hitting the bottom line in your communications, and providing exactly what they need at a price they can get behind, they will find your content useful. Their assertive personality types often point towards the character traits of being impatient and controlling. For this type of customer, provide your information quickly and allow them to make a decision and move forwards.

You can spot an assertive consumer through their use of declarative sentences, rather than asking a question. More often than not they will also exude confidence.

How to sell to them:

Appeal to their efficiency, cut to the chase and don’t waste their time.

Demonstrate why your brand, service or product is useful to their organisation.

Take advantage of their competitive nature: make it clear how your product or service will give them a competitive edge amongst their peers.

Avoid using subjective information and customer testimonials. Your bottom-line consumers will want to see facts, figures and results.

2. The Excitable Consumer

The excitable consumer has a highly amiable personality type. They search for trust above all else with the brands they choose to interact with. This type of consumer thrives off the excitement of a new challenge, and will often be found diving enthusiastically into creative or unexpected solutions to their problems. These problems might range from not having the right summer wardrobe, or having trouble budgeting their finances.

Excitable customers don’t tend to invest a lot of time researching brands or their competition, which allows email marketers to guide them almost single handed through the customer journey before purchasing the product.

How to sell to them:

Help excitable consumers visualise the outcomes from your product or service.

Build a relationship to enable them to feel secure before hitting them with a hard sell.

Provide examples of your former similar clients that have enjoyed your product or service. Let them know why those customers came to you, and what tipped them towards your brand.

Always appear the expert. Act as an advisor instead of overwhelming your excitable customers with an excess of information.

Provide personal guarantees to encourage their. Offering a no fuss refund often helps to quash any anxiety.

3. The Humanist Consumer.

Humanist consumers are also referred to as expressive consumers. They tend to place a very high regard on personal relationships, which is a trait shared with your excitable consumers. Humanist consumers tend to be highly concerned with the wellbeing of others, therefore they will often deeply contemplate the decisions they make based on how the outcome will affect the people around them.

They are the ultimate people pleasers, yet they have strong and powerful personalities and can prove hard to convince. Traits displayed by humanist consumers usually reflect their creative, spontaneous, intuitive and outgoing persona. They value mutual respect and loyalty very seriously – never approach a humanist consumer with offhand commitments, this will almost certainly end your relationship.

How to sell to them:

Offer reassurance to humanist consumers by proving your track record through stories of how your brand has made a positive impact on people’s lives or the environment.

Show how their purchase decision will affect them on a human level rather than using too many facts and figures.

4. The Logical Consumer

Some of your customers are guaranteed to be of an analytical persuasion. These people love data, raw figures and comparisons. They’re not looking for a flowery pitch; for the best chance of appealing to a logical consumer, cut straight to the facts. However, chances are the logical consumers will often do their own research on your brand or company.

It is very rare for this type of consumer to make decisions quickly; they are logical and cautious, and can even be procrastinators. However, when they do finally come to a decision, it’s not likely that they’ll change their mind.

How to sell to them:

Be prepared to nurture customers of this personality type. Never rush them; instead, prepare for a lengthier selling process to enable your logical thinkers to gather all the necessary facts to come to a decision.

Never underestimate their intelligence or make bold claims: they’ve probably done their own research. This gives marketers the perfect opportunity to sell based on customised features and personal solutions rather than the basics.

So, there you have it: the four main personality types of consumers, and how to sell to them. Of course, people are very diverse, and everybody is different. Sometimes, the same technique may not even be effective on two people of the same personality type. However, you can’t go far wrong if you consider your customers for who they are, and adjust your marketing and sales techniques accordingly. Good luck!